L.A. Law featured many then-unknown actors in guest roles who later became famous, including Kevin Spacey, Christian Slater, Steve Buscemi, Lucy Liu, Kathy Bates, David Schwimmer, Carrie-Anne Moss, William H. Macy, and Bryan Cranston.
The exteriors for the fictional law firm McKenzie, Brackman, Chaney and Kuzak were shot at the FourFortyFour South Flower building in downtown Los Angeles, then known as the 444 Flower Building.
The opening credits always began with a close-up of a car trunk slamming shut, revealing a personalized 'LA LAW' license plate; a Jaguar XJ Series III was used for the first seven seasons, replaced by a 1993 Bentley Continental R for the final season, with registration stickers matching each season's year.
The show used two different musical openings for its theme: a saxophone riff for lighter episodes and an ominous synthesizer chord for more serious storylines.
Co-creator Terry Louise Fisher was fired from the series during season 2 and filed a well-publicized lawsuit against Bochco and the studio, which was eventually settled.
The season 5 scene showing Leland McKenzie in bed with Rosalind Shays was ranked the 38th greatest moment in television by EGG Magazine, and the episode 'Good to the Last Drop,' in which Shays dies falling down an open elevator shaft, was ranked No. 91 on TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time.
The Star Trek Encyclopedia referenced Diana Muldaur's death scene on L.A. Law, noting in Dr. Katherine Pulaski's fictional biography that 'there is no truth to the rumor that an ancestor of Dr. Pulaski was killed falling down the elevator shaft at a prestigious Los Angeles law firm.'
Boston attorney David E. Kelley was hired by Bochco during the first season after co-writing the feature film From the Hip, and went on to become the show's showrunner before leaving to create Picket Fences.
A fictitious sex position called the 'Venus Butterfly,' introduced in season 1 with only a vague clue about 'ordering room service,' generated so much fan curiosity that viewers flooded the producers with letters demanding more details.
The show aired the first lesbian kiss on American television in 1991, in the episode 'He's a Crowd' (season 5), between characters C.J. Lamb (Amanda Donohoe) and Abby (Michele Greene), and won GLAAD's first Media Award for Outstanding Drama Series in 1990.
The series tied itself to the real 1992 Los Angeles riots, depicting attorney Stuart Markowitz being struck on the head by a rioter in a scene reminiscent of the real-life attack on Reginald Denny, while partner Douglas Brackman is arrested amid the mayhem on his way to get remarried.
Dan Castellaneta, the voice of Homer Simpson, appeared in a Homer costume in the seventh-season premiere, which also reflected on the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
In the eighth and final season, characters Eli Levinson and Denise Iannello were transplanted from Bochco's canceled legal series Civil Wars, with Eli Levinson revealed to be Stuart Markowitz's cousin.
The series ended in 1994 without a proper finale after NBC declined to renew it for a ninth season at the last minute, as the network gave the prized Thursday timeslot to the successful new series ER instead.
A reunion film, L.A. Law: The Movie, aired in 2002 featuring most of the original main cast, and in 2020 several cast members including Harry Hamlin and Jimmy Smits reunited on a podcast for charity, marking their first appearance together in 30 years.
A sequel series was in development at ABC starting in 2020, with Blair Underwood and Corbin Bernsen set to reprise their roles, but ABC decided not to move forward with the pilot in May 2022.
